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Verification of pull-out resistance of anchors in soil/rock formations using empirical and finite element methods

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Abstract

This paper introduces an investigation using 3-D finite element method (FEM) and empirical methods for prediction of pull-out resistance (skin friction) of ground anchors installed in soil, and soft rock formations are presented. Four full-scale ground anchor tests installed into different soils and rock types namely, clay, silty sand, and sandstone, were carried out. The tests were performed up to twice of working loads or failure loads so that the ultimate skin friction resistance for each soil/rock strata under the pull-out loads was estimated. Furthermore, an extensive site investigation campaign was performed to predict the in situ soil/rock characteristics. Field test setup and installation method of the full-scale ground anchors were presented in details. FEM (Plaxis 3D subroutine) was used to verify the results of the pull-out field tests. Besides, the measurements of the field tests were compared with the values of unit skin friction resistance given by the well-known codes of practice (AASHTO, and BS 8081) for design of ground anchorage. It was found that the proposed 3-D FEM and the adopted constitutive models provided good agreement with the field test results.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt

    A. H. Abdel-Rahman

  2. Assistant Professor, PhD, Department of Civil Engineering, National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt

    M. F. Awad-Allah

Authors
  1. A. H. Abdel-Rahman
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  2. M. F. Awad-Allah
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Correspondence to M. F. Awad-Allah.

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Appendix A

Appendix A

In this section, the design tables and charts given by code of practice used in the paper (AASHTO, and BS 8081) for prediction of ultimate skin friction resistances (tult) are presented.

Estimation of pull-out anchor capacity using AASHTO [2]

Tables

Table 9 Presumptive ultimate unit skin friction stress for anchors in cohesive soils (AASHTO, 2004)
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9,

Table 10 Presumptive ultimate unit skin friction stress for anchors in cohesionless soils (AASHTO, 2004)
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10, and

Table 11 Presumptive ultimate unit skin friction stress for anchors in rock (AASHTO, 2004)
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11 represent the presumptive values that may be used to estimate the nominal (ultimate bond for small diameter anchors installed in cohesive soils, cohesionless soils, and rock, respectively.

Estimation of pull-out anchor capacity using BS 8081 [12]

Figures 

Fig. 22
figure 22

Distribution of long-term skin friction (f) at ultimate load in relation to anchor bond length and soil density (after [33])

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22 and

Fig. 23
figure 23

Skin friction resistance in cohesive soils for various bond lengths, with and without post-grouting (after [32])

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Fig. 23 gives the relationships between the fixed length and the ultimate skin friction resistance recommended by the BS 8081 [12] for cohesionless and cohesive soils, respectively. Those design charts are based on previous field work on ground anchor tests done by Ostermayer [32], Ostermayer and Scheele [33].

For anchors in rock, BS 8081 [12] provides guide design values of rock-grout bond stress as shown in Table

Table 12 Rock-grout bond values for design recommended by BS 8081, 1989 (after [30]
Full size table

12.

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Abdel-Rahman, A.H., Awad-Allah, M.F. Verification of pull-out resistance of anchors in soil/rock formations using empirical and finite element methods. Innov. Infrastruct. Solut. 7, 134 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41062-021-00726-3

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